A Peculiar Blog

There is something that I think has been completely lost on the younger generation.  It’s the fact that just because something is new does not make it a better or even a good thing.  For example every once in a while I waste an hour or two of my time trying to convince people that what J.J. Abrams did to Star Trek is wrong and that not only is it wrong, he did all the wrong things for he wrong reasons.

Yes, that alleged “movie” has done great at the box office and later it’s done great in DVD sales.  People have bought a lot of copies of it and they’re not done yet.  That still doesn’t make it right.

I keep hearing how Star Trek needed to have new life breathed into it and I can’t find any way to agree with that statement other than it was time for younger actors to take up the roles and carry them forward.  However just as you don’t rewrite Shakespeare, you don’t create a Star Trek story that destroys the entire original time line.

A the very least, it’s disrespectful.

There are too many possibilities that have never been explored in that original to even come close to justifying it’s destruction.

Anyway, to get back on point, as you can probably tell I’ve just come from such an argument.  One that I consider myself to be the victor even though the other parties are too interested in flash, noise, sex and chrome plated warp nacelles with a Homer Simpson wannabe in the captain’s chair to realize it or care. (oops, there I go again.)

That’s why right now I’d just absolutely love to sit back with something like this copy of The Shining Special Edition.  I want to do this because it’s a classic.

It’s a classic that some young punk hasn’t come along and decided to strip it down and flush it’s original vision down the toilet as they “reboot” it.

This movie was directed by Stanley Kubrick, a master film maker that KNEW what he was doing and settled for nothing less than exactly what he needed.  It was the film in which Jack Nicholson gave his absolutely legendary performance as Jack Torrance, a Vermont schoolteacher working as a winter caretaker at the Overlook hotel.  A resort that is so socked in and isolated during the winter weather that it is all but totally unreachable.

Watching it you get to see how he slowly loses his grip on sanity and becomes the legendary madman who calls out “Heeeere’s Johnny!” as he merrily hacks his way through a door to kill his family.

At least I think I’m safe in expecting that won’t be “rebooted” by some idiot who doesn’t even understand the story.  Now all I have to do is convince somebody that they really need to buy me a copy of it.

[tags]classics, movies, tv, star trek, the shining, jack nicholson, wishlist, argument[/tags]